They literally put the financial future of their most successful IP on the line just so they could get a possible payout from the AT&T merger, a deal that is currently entangled in a DOJ lawsuit and might not get approval until April if at all.

Money changes a person and I can't even imagine the kind of change that takes place on that kind of scale. When you no longer "need" anything and "want" becomes your primary operational directive then things are bound to change.

Most of us want money because we can do something else with it- it's totally an extrinsic motivation.

On the other hand, painters like to paint; competitive swimmers like to swim; social workers like to go out helping people. This guy simply intrinsically enjoyed the process of making money and building a giant financial empire. Like playing a 4x or Empire Building video game, but in real life. He didn't do it for the money, he did it for the satisfaction of it- money was just the high score.

as bad as it sounds, at the end of the day the whole purpose of making movies is to make money. Money for who? Obviously if they're not gonna be here next year, they don't give a shit about making money for the company. They'll be somewhere else.

edit: getting a lot of people saying film is an art form. I'm very obviously talking about execs here, not directors/actors/writers. Most movies, especially blockbusters, are just numbers to studios. They are the things that fund the 'prestige' or 'award' films which often lose money.

From reading that interview with Feige, Favreau and the head of Marvel at the time (forgot his name) looking back at Iron Man 1, there are still people who care. Feige is the real deal. He just cares so much about the characters and comics. He had to make big bucks and that is why he pitched it to foreign places, but at the core he wanted to do well.

What does DC have for this? The execs? Snyder? Geoff Johns? The execs couldn't care less, they didn't build this up from scratch like Feige did with helping create Marvel Studios. Snyder? I am sure he meant well but he got shoehorned and had to really change his idea for Man of Steel. His trilogy pitch for Superman was a good idea, he just had to make a larger universe for some reason.

Lastly, Geoff Johns? Don't get me wrong, I love the guy and he definitely can helm it, but he is left with garbage. There is no soul in the movies. No respect for any of the characters. Look at Wonder Woman in Justice League compared to her own movie lol.

Well, that is my tiny rant. Marvel is making big bucks, but they have people who really are working that want to make the best films they can for the readers from all these years, and the general audience.

DC has great comic heads and have been killing that side for years now, even with the low points of the New 52. They need to bring the comic heads who love the comics into the movies. Let Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder, Jim Lee, Tom King and Geoff Johns get together and make an outline for the Cinematic universe. Get WB out of the picture and let people who love the history build its future.

This is also a reason why DC is thriving on TV. They have a Kevin Feige who knows and cares about the characters called Greg Berlanti. Every idea, every crossover, every in-joke, gets approved by him. It feels like CW DC is closer to Marvel then to DCU.

After Peter Jackson replaced Guillermo del Toro to direct 'The Hobbit', he later admitted it was too much for him. The director of 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy didn't have enough time to do "The Hobbit' correctly. This shows changing directors isn't like changing a light bulb.

I think what both cases also demonstrate is that studios need to be willing to give filmmakers more time to make sure their films truly work, even if that means changing long-scheduled seasonal tentpole release dates.

One executive told TheWrap Tsujihara and Emmerich “wanted to preserve their bonuses they would be paid before the merger,” and were worried that “if they pushed the movie, then their bonuses would have been pushed to the following year and they might not still be at the studio.”

Another knowledgable insider said that at the highest levels of Warner Bros., bonuses are awarded “for making good decisions.” If delaying a film is the right decision, an executive could be rewarded for it.

This can be a lesson that Greed could heavily damaged almost everything.

Jeez, the fact that this comment is upvoted really proves that you only see what you want to see.

So the DCEU we were following was destroyed because of a corporate bonus?

No the DCEU as a brand was damaged massively because of BvS. The numbers do not lie. There's even a quote about it in the very article.

“This just goes to show you how much the brand has eroded since ‘Batman v Superman.’ That was supposed to be the precursor to something even more momentous, but that never ended up happening because of how badly ‘BvS’ performed. The word of mouth has just been toxic,” said Jeff Bock, Senior Box Office Analyst at Exhibitor Relations.

That's why JL opened so shockingly low. Yes, if the movie was this universally received movie both critically and with audiences, it would have done well overall, like WW, but it still wouldn't have made some ridiculous $50+ million dollar swing, it just would have had good legs. BvS caused that damage.

It confirms the fact that they didnt want to build, they wanted to jump to the team up for avengers cash right away.

No, that was Snyder.

When you came aboard Man of Steel, were you thinking in the back of your mind, "I could be the guy who gets to reboot Batman on film too!"

ZS: I gotta be honest, it definitely was a thing that... after Man of Steel finished and we started talking about what would be in the next movie, I started subtly mentioning that it would be cool if he faced Batman. In the first meeting, it was like, "Maybe Batman?" Maybe at the end of the second movie, some Kryptonite gets delivered to Bruce Wayne's house or something. Like in a cryptic way, that's the first time we see him. But then, once you say it out loud, right? You're in a story meeting talking about, like, who should [Superman] fight if he fought this giant alien threat Zod who was basically his equal physically, from his planet, fighting on our turf... You know, who to fight next? The problem is, once you say it out loud, then it's kind of hard to go back, right? Once you say, "What about Batman?" then you realize, "Okay, that's a cool idea. What else?" I mean, what do you say after that? ...But I'm not gonna say at all that when I took the job to do Man of Steel that I did it in a subversive way to get to Batman. I really believe that only after contemplating who could face [Superman] did Batman come into the picture. - Source

And up until seeing the atrocious reception of BvS, WB gave Snyder free-reign.

An individual with deep knowledge of the studio said Silverman didn’t read offer notes on Snyder’s scripts. Another described Silverman’s attitude as “remarkably laissez faire.” These qualities might have been praised if Snyder’s films were universally loved: Executives are usually criticized for meddling too much, not too little. No one complained that Nolan had too much freedom on “The Dark Knight.”

It was Snyder that couldn't resist using Batman and WW right away and then jumping into JL. As the article states, WB was basically hands-off with how Snyder wanted to approach the universe.

It did seem like a huge gamble, but good lord man the dude worked through his daughters passing. Did you really need to treat him like shit.

Snyder got two tries with the DCEU, both underperformed, the latter, massively so. Yet even then, they gave him a third chance. And for those blaming Tsujihara for everything and not putting any blame on Snyder, he's the guy that ultimately decided to give Snyder that third chance.

Asked who ultimately decided to keep Snyder on, the insider said: “It wasn’t Greg’s decision. This was all happening on a Tsujihara level.”

And finally there's this

In the spring, while Snyder and Warner Bros. were engaged in a push-pull over the right amount of light and darkness in “Justice League,” true tragedy struck.
Zack and Deborah Snyder’s daughter died by suicide.
At first, an insider said, the director’s plan was that “work was gonna be kind of a refuge.”
But then it wasn’t. Snyder was under added pressure because Warner Bros. was embracing “the lighter, different, more confectionary ideas of Joss,” the insider said. “It stopped being a good situation on any level.”
And so in May, Snyder left “Justice League” to focus on his family, and, eventually, a more personal project, the film “Last Photograph,” with Warners’ support.
And Whedon took over the project.
But time was running out.

Snyder wasn't fired. He left on his own accord. And hindsight now having seeing JL, you can say that them going with a part Whedon movie didn't work or pay off, but at the time, they had to do something. They couldn't go with Snyder's vision again even after failing time and time again with audiences. At the time it made sense to try something else, and they had Joss Whedon, the guy with the two highest grossing Comicbook movies of all-time. If I were, a WB exec, I would have too said, "Joss do your thing".

Look, in summary, I'm not saying WB shouldn't have any fault. They should have the most fault. They're the ones that didn't part ways with Snyder before JL and there the one's that didn't delay JL after Snyder left so they could get a proper film, just so they could get their bonuses. I'm just saying that Snyder is what got them in that predicament in the first place and I hope you guys can see that despite your love of his take on DC and the movies he's brought you.

It's really sad that Snyder keeps thinking of Superhero movies as "well who can he fight?" None of the Captain America movies have a villainous punching bag as the central conflict. It's Captain America vs Germany, or Shield, or the other Avengers, conflict that is moral as much as it is physical.

Not even that. Marvel realized that focusing on the heroes' internal conflicts made them great characters. It's why Tony Stark is so punchable in Civil War but also completely relatable. He's an AMAZING and conflicted antagonist with very real motivations and emotions... And reasonable flaws. Unlike Zod, or Lex Luther. The conflict between Batman and Superman is flimsy and feels manufactured. Superman vs Batman should be a battle of deontological and teleological ethics, not some lame punch out contest because they are suspicious of each other. Meanwhile, in the Marvel Universe, we have Loki as a hero who seems genuinely interested in being a good guy for once (having cured his chronic backstabbing syndrome but still a force of chaos). It's just more interesting to watch characters be genuinely tested and change, rather than to have a movie constructed from the ground up to set up a fight scene. Marvel has been criticized for having less memorable villains, but somehow the conflict in Marvel movies is far better than most of the new DC movies.

Not even that. Marvel realized that focusing on the heroes' internal conflicts made them great characters. It's why Tony Stark is so punchable in Civil War but also completely relatable.

It's not just relatable. It's logical. Tony's motivations had a real logic to them. To the point where the protagonists logic was genuinely called into question--so much so you could genuinely ask "who was the protagonist".

Tony was part of an American paramilitary force that was entering into other countries sovereign borders without permission, and then during one incursion, 17 people died. That alone would bring a back lash that really only the very largest nations (Economically speaking) could weather. U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China...Aside from those nations, almost no one else could tolerate the back lash (It helps to have a UN security council seat...)

An "independent" military organization having that kind of power without every nation throwing a fit? Really...Oh, and lets not forget that same organization also created an AI that nearly destroyed the world--they literally lost control of an alien-based super weapon. The only comparison we even have are Nuclear/Chemical weapons--and even super powers agreed to limit themselves and bow to oversight on those.

But somehow, the Avengers, with the capability to easily destroy the world...should have no oversight? (And yes, I know it was Tony who designed the Ultron..But if a rogue general launches a nuke, the country he's from is still responsible, part of running any organization is people will hold you to account, or at least try to.) The truth was, it was Captain America being totally unreasonable with his inability to compromise on oversight....But...

Because Captain America's morals were impeccable, and because of his recent experience with SHIELD, most people overlooked how unreasonable his position was, because he arrived there logically--his old organization had oversight and it was a disaster. ..Meanwhile, Tony can be a jerk, and his entire arc showed how terrible the cost of his mistakes were when he had no oversight (Weapons in the hands of terrible people, creating a death AI).

So what you had in the film was literally a case where two people with very logical motivations, disagree...And that's great story telling. In great stories, the antagonist should not be "evil"--he should be the hero of his own story. People should almost feel okay if he won. Walter White is a great example of a very well done bad guy because of that...He's horrific in what he does...But his experiences, how unfair and ridiculous the world around him was? Made most people see his position as logical, even justified.

That's good writing. Batman's position was Superman might have a tantrum...and then he changed his position because their mom's shared a first name....the hell? (I get it supposedly "showed" how human Superman was...But the reality is, if Batman's logic was based off of Superman having too much power, then Superman being "human" doesn't change a damn thing...A human with that much power is still the same kind of threat.)

Your Rogue general comment also made me think of another great cinematic villain, purely because you see his side. Which is rather surprisingly from a Michael Bay film, General Hummel in The Rock.

He's undoubtedly doing something reprehensible, yet even before he confirms it you have the feeling that he's really bluffing. And he's very clear that this isn't for personal gain, it's an attempt to right a wrong that was done to his men and their families.

Not only that, in BvS, Batman mentioned it was worth taking down Superman if there's even a 1% chance Superman would go rogue and then he goes back on his words completely in JL saying they should revive Superman even with the doubt knowing he might not the same/evil. These characters just change when the plot needs them to be and not at all realistic.

To be fair, JL completely ignored or even retconned several plot points from BvS. That's not just continuity error, it's like shitting on the movie that came before it, but also requiring you to embrace it otherwise you'll get lost in the plot.

I think this is something DC struggles with in general. Coming from the Golden Age, heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman are essentially modern day deities. Because of this, it's much harder to humanize them. A very central part of their story and who they are is their disconnect from humanity, Superman because he's an alien and WW because she grows up on Themyscira. Even Batman occasionally falls into this trap when he's presented as being so driven to fight crime that he's more Batman than Bruce, like he was in BvS.

Now, compare that to Marvel: Captain America starts off as an underdog constantly trying to prove himself. Iron Man starts off coming to terms with how his company's arms dealing is affecting the world and attempts to take responsibility. And even though Thor is alien, his story is one of having to learn humility to regain his worth. They all have to figure out who they are, and they all grow as a result.

But this doesn't mean this is impossible to do with DC's heroes as Nolan's Batman proved. In his trilogy, Bruce is still highly-driven, but an ongoing theme is him realizing everything he has to sacrifice to achieve his goals. Much of the series is Bruce attempting to find any sort of balance and failing, often at the cost of Bruce's reputation. Not only that, in the second movie, you also see him struggling to figure out how far he wants to go as Batman. He isn't just someone showing up to kick ass and fight bad guys.

Zod was actually pretty good. He was bred to protect Krypton at all costs and keep its people alive. Even after the planets destruction he pushed to revive the race once again. He was the greatest villain in the DCEU imo.

I don't disagree! See my comment below. Good character, LAME plot. So much more potential, but he's satisfying to watch because he's decently written and very well acted. Ironically, the scenes that are least interesting for Zod are some of the fight scenes

And it literally undermined the whole premise of the story up till now. Chris Pine's character understood that and just played along to get Diana's help. Having the movie end with her having the realization that humans can be good and evil would have been perfect.

When we first learn who Ares is, I logically assumed that he had the mustache to blend in as a human during that time period. But shortly thereafter we see that he has the mustache not only when he assumes his true form, but even when he was cast out of Olympus centuries ago!

So here's what I think happened. Ares had his silly mustache for a long time and all was well, and then one day he overheard someone making fun of it behind his back. Being of fragile ego, he devised a plan to make himself feel better - with the same spectral-whisper magic he used to give the villains the ideas for their wartime innovations, he planted the suggestion of the toothbrush mustache in the minds of influential and powerful men in Britain.

"Hey, you should totally grow a mustache but not a beard..."

"Imagine how cool a caterpillar of hair would look on your upper lip with the rest of your face clean-shaven..."

And that's how Ares, the god of war, changed the face of British fashion to make himself feel better about his goofy facial hair.

You mean CGI armored dad-bod Remus Lupin? I hate those scenes so much. When he put on the armor I was like thank god at least a small reprieve. And then he pulled the melting face armor away to reveal his stupid fucking mustache, and I was like now you're just doing it on purpose to fuck with me.

That's because the villain was weak as a character, though, not because "let's not focus on any villains as all" is a brilliant design strategy. And it's the same with the Marvel movies; most villains are very underwhelming.

Nolan got it right with his Batman trilogy; despite it's many flaws the villains were great. Most of the Marvel TV shows have good villains as well.

batman was "hyper real" but once you start introducing aliens that can fly it's much harder to maintain any reality that they seem to try for. nolan likely knew that.

towards the end the nolan batman trilogy got way more surreal to a fault too. the first movie is a just a darker rebirth story with a lot of action. the second one starts to stray but the compelling characters give us a little more. but if the third one had come out first i'm not sure what would have happened.

compare Man of Steel to the tone of say "winter soldier" which is on the darker scale for marvel and is much more reality based, but it still just seems like more fun than this giant heavy thing audiences are supposed to experience.

And then as soon as they actually fight the movie went to shit for me, would have enjoyed it much more if the glass illusion conversation was all we seen of Ares in the movie, just have some tanks or something show up for the final battle I dunno.

BvS was an indicator and Suicide Squad was the final nail* in the coffin for me. It was very plain they had no idea what the fuck they were doing after seeing SS. Wonder Woman was a nice surprise, but it’s very clear that that was an anomaly now.

Duncan Jones essentially came into Warcraft when it was in prepro hell after the previous director left and had to make the best with the terrible script. I remember seeing it on an interview. For what is was, I loved Warcraft as someone who has pretty much been playing vanilla-Legion since 6th grade but it was an underwhelming movie with way too much character/exposition cut out.

It’s genuinely baffling how human the cgi orcs looked and felt especially in the deleted scenes, but the human characters were one dimensional, bland, and entirely unmemorable

"We're told by knowledgeable insiders the reason Warner Bros. picked Snyder for Man of Steel is that the script by David Goyer was rushed, is still a bit of a mess, and that Warner Bros. needs someone who won't spend months or even years trying to get it just right (i.e., Aronofsky), because time is the one thing they don't have: The studio must have a new Superman movie in production by 2011 or they'll be subject to potential lawsuits by the heirs of the superhero's creators."

"We're told that Snyder was not really Warner's first choice to direct Superman, but that a director needed to be hired imminently."

"We hear that Affleck has since passed on Gangster Squad (he was also offered Superman, by the way, and he turned that down, too) and now Warner Bros. is offering Aronofsky's reps Gangster Squad as well."

So you also have Darren Aronofsky and Ben Affleck being mentioned as well though they don't appear to be on the Nolan shortlist.

I enjoyed 300 and Watchmen, but they weren't universally liked movies. I personally don't know why DC chose Zack Snyder of all people to set up the DCEU. His style of directing doesn't appeal to everyone. When Nolan said he didn't want to do it they should have been more active about finding others that may have been interested.

Yeah the article talks about those movies as if they were masterpieces. 300 is fun popcorn flick and Watchmen was pretty much the best it could have been but that's it. Not good enough to build a whole universe around

I disagree. Snyder's obsession with slo-mo violence basically neutered the idea of 'deconstructing' the hero and made it mindlessly violent. A person could argue that those mindless fights he added (the alley and prison fights) were there to show how audiences seemed to savor violence even when the reality is actually ugly, but it came off as grindhouse exploitation, not NBK satire.

I appreciate Watchmen, and do think it will age gracefully and that Snyder did many things and took a lot of risks to get that film made, but he definitely messed up some parts in my book.

It's sad how completely believable all of this is. What went wrong? Bad business by people putting short term business and personal gain before putting out the best possible product they can make.

What's interesting to think about is wondering how the toxicity of BvS would have impacted Justice League had Justice League been a fan and critical hit like Wonder Woman was. If reviews praised it and word of mouth was really good, would it have overcome the BvS toxicity?

Overall though, I just can't get behind the decision making that lead to making BvS (so many huge stories fit in one movie, introducing Batman, having a super emo/gloomy Superman again, a fight that felt unearned, etc) and then deciding to make Justice League which meant introducing new characters in JL (Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg) and yet again, it felt unearned. Inherently Justice League is about the coming together of a handful of heroes that we know and love. But if we don't know half of them yet, and two of the other three aren't super well received (Batman with his killing and emo/gloomy Superman)...what are you left with? Using the "Justice League" title/brand to make as much money as possible quickly before the merger.

That's disgusting to think about. It perfectly sums up my opinion on how BvS and Justice League weren't earned. You have to build up to events. By Avengers we were so invested in Iron Man, Thor, Capt and Hulk. They earned them coming together in an organic way, teaming up, and not needing to introduce anyone to us fresh (like the DCEU did with Cyborg, Flash and Aquaman).

GotG was great but I don't think it works as a comparison here. You can't really compare Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot to Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor. I'm more than happy to watch a Captain America movie but I don't think a standalone Drax or Gamora movie would work nearly as well.

Good point, the characters are not that out-there: Lovable rogue/scoundrel, Bounty hunter/engineer, Giant who can rip your arms off but doesn't speak english, Tortured Assassin, and a Barbarian/warrior. We've seen similar before - there's no distinct special powers or crazy origin story that we need to know, hell two films in I'm not even sure if they are superheroes or just a bunch of hapless misfits that get lucky a lot.

Yes but the Marvel vs DC is the closest comparable scenario. Marvel built a world from the ground up, stories and characters developed movie after movie. It's what caused the first Avengers to be shot into blockbuster status. All that build up.

DC wanted to play catch up as quickly as possible, no attachment to any character and you don't cheer for a character you don't care about.

It says a lot when you care more about a tree and a rock guy than fucking Batman.

I think BvS could have worked as a prelude to JL, but it needed a little more time before they made the film. I just don’t know what that film wanted to be? Was it a Batman movie? A Superman movie? Was it talking about the dangers of meta-human and god like entities? Is it answering questions about Superman or the meta-humans place on Earth?

If they really wanted to make BvS and JL here’s how it should have been done.

First make a Batman film, Superman film, Aquaman film and a Flash film. Now you have established a series of films that you want to connect together.

Now make a BvS film make Batman the primary antagonist and Lex Luthor as the secondary antagonist. This is a prelude to JL. Now you can discuss the dangers of these meta humans or why they may be needed to protect the world. Don’t do that stupid email scene to shoehorn these characters.

Now do Wonder Woman and Green Lantern film. Finally have Cyborg appear in the Justice League film and tie it altogether. Everyone in Hollywood wants to piggyback of the cinematic universe craze but no one seems to want to go through the grind to build it right.

Legendary is also doing a very good job with their Monsterverse movies. Godzilla, Skull Island, King of Monsters, then Godzilla vs Kong feels like its going to be a very natural, well developed series so far.

That scene, along with Superman being coerced into fighting Batman simply by kidnapping his Martha rendered everything that came previous pointless. All those overly complicated subplots ultimately led to nothing and wasted two hours. I remember thinking in the theater, "Why didn't the movie basically just start here?"

Shit, so that's not even followed up in JL? I thought those scenes were so incredibly stupid. I mean, visually they looked good, but by being detached of the story and by lacking any meaning they were just confusing. I may not be a super comic book geek, but I've read my fair share of the more important tomes and can have a reasonably informed discussion about famous storylines, and I had no idea what the hell was going on. Then, turns out it's all a dream anyhow, so nevermind, might be explained in the next film (although now it turns out that's not the case either, so absolute waste of time). It was all so confusing, and since not tethered to any present reality, very boring. But Zach Snyder must have thought it would all look 'really cool'. It did, in the trailer, when we thought it would be part of an actual, you know, story. Otherwise, it's just a music video, which I really think Zach Snyder should stick to. He really is one of the worst story-tellers working in Hollywood, and it's insane they gave him the whole DC Universe to play with instead of someone like George Miller. Someone who can, you know, tell a story.

Yup. No matter how it can be defended, it has become a meme more popular and well known than the movie. That is bad. It damages the brand. It makes your movie and brand a joke. Which is deadly when your building a cinematic universe.

He's always been on good terms with the studio, which is probably why they allowed him to release his directors cuts.

But imagine you make a 3 hour movie and it gets forced to be 2 and a half hours long. Then he has to bullshit his way through "the core movie is still there" excuse knowing he's not happy that his movie was butchered. Then you take all the blame for the studios incompetence.

Then imagine you make a sequel to this movie, the studio let's you make it as you want, then after tragedy they completely butcher the film by cutting the runtime and completely changing nearly everything to do with the character who the whole trilogy was about.

Like you can love what he does or hate him, but as a filmmaker he must be fucking pissed. They've completely dicked him over here and to be honest it seems like they even dicked Whedon over a bit too with time constraints and what not.

The studio deserve to lose money on this and it's 100% on them. Blame Snyder for his vision but end of the day the studio stupidly greenlit it, bottled out of it, kept him on and let him make the finale and then bottled out of that as well. That level of incompetence deserves to result in failure and I hope people get fired for it.

This was their tentpole franchise and movie and they gave it no respect. If they truly cared we could have the next big cinematic universe. Useless cunts.

Yeah, the studio meddling difference between WB and Disney is that at least Disney interferes prior, so that the filmmakers have an ability to work with it and integrate it into the stories they want to tell.

With WB, the cuts to BvS, SS, and JL were all made after it had already been filmed. The course corrections they did probably did more to hamper the movie if anything, and contrary to the popular belief that there's "no such thing as bad publicity", the media coverage and copious amounts of articles on how they've handled their movies does not look good to the consumer; why spend money in theatres on something that's been stitched together and/or cut down?

Regardless of how you feel about Snyder's handling of BvS, WB really should've kept tabs on it before or during filming if they were intent on controlling certain aspects of production. Forcing the Ultimate Cut to be cut down relatively close to its planned release date did no one any favours.

Exactly, when Disney does a Marvel movie they tell them "Here's the line/limit, any questions please ask and we can help keep the continuity going"

WB is trying so hard and failing so hard to play catch-up with Marvel, when if they would just stop and look at what made Marvel work they would know it was never planned to be this big expansive cinematic universe but it just happened.

Wonder Woman is great because it's treated as it's own movie, it's a simple origin story what she went through, learned who she was and then had a tie in at the end, BvS was like the movie that was supposed to come out around Avengers (or just skipped entirely) if anything they should have done Superman-Batman-Wonder Woman-Batman v Superman.

Then after that they do Aquaman-Flash-Cyborg (any order really) -Justice League, it would have felt more natural, gotten us to know the characters and only taken 4 years for the first batch then four for the second followed by introductions for other members, instead we got such a jumbled mess that the only person who makes sense in the series is Wonder Woman, Batman we get like 20 years of being Batman and he has gone through hell yet we are never told why, Superman has a good story going in but doesn't seem like Superman with what he has been through.

Reading recent interviews and retrospectives published in Vanity Fair (and assuming everything said by them is true, even if the very article starts with Robert Downey Jr. saying that they probably remember it now in a more romantic fashion) It seems they really started with a smaller scope, Marvel Studios was basically an independent studio at the time and Iron Man was really risky, the focus was making Iron Man good, the Fury stinger was shot more with good wishes than great plans in mind and only until Iron Man got the great reception it had then the interconnected universe was seriously considered, that is why The Incredible Hulk has the Tony Stark scene so disconnected from the rest of the movie.

The MCU truly started with that Hulk scene and then Iron Man 2 was the one that really started to put down the foundations.

I feel those first couple of movies were mostly lead with a great vision more than hard plans on how the cinematic universe would shape up, of course they quickly realized what they had in their hands.

It shows the huge divide between Marvel and WB. The amount of care and attention to detail Marvel took with Iron Man Vs WB just seeing their earnings and trying to emulate that for a fast return. Marvel focused on making a good film. It's amazing how much WB couldn't figure out something so simple.

I can’t help but think of how meta the opening montage with the theme probably was and if it was intentionally chosen to comment on what was going on.

The sign saying, “I Tried.” And the lyrics.

“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows”

I feel bad for everyone involved in this film. Shooting started right after BvS so they couldn't take the criticisms to heart until a good chunk of the movie was shot, Snyder suffered one of the worst family tragedies one can imagine, Whedon was given the leftovers of what most certainly was going to be yet another BvS and had to cobble together the best movie he could with what he had, Affleck looks like he wants to skedaddle any minute now, and Cavill had his mustache CGI'd out because Paramount wouldn't let him shave.

Hopefully it will soon end the whole this is Whedons fault narrative. It's very clear no one is in charge at DC and with executives coming and going and being more worried about their Christmas bonus before getting fired than making a good movie there is just no chance. It's clear the only film that got critical love and over performed was the one film no one messed with because they thought the stakes were low and they would rather focus on the bigger films.

That still doesn't excuse Snyder's lack of adhering to the true character core of Batman and Superman. It's as if he only read The Dark Knight Returns and watched the Christopher Reeve Superman. To him Batman is all combat and extreme violence, or whimsical Ironman carbon copy in JL. The whole Batman with a gun and how he just brutally massacres anyone in his way, or the lack of saving anyone aside from MARTHA. And then Superman is treated like a lawful good paladin boy scout who has no emotion or relatable aspects. The real Superman would have crouched down and been more in oar with a dad joke type guy with those kids from JL, and he certainly would not have flown away like a fearful coward after the Congress exploded in BvS. It's really a mess, and while Studio involvement is part of it, I just don't think Snyder is that great of a director. And while I do like Whedon, I much prefer the dark and gritty over the half off cringe copy of The Avengers JL turned out to be.

But my respect given to Snyder for pulling off what we got with the tragedy that befell him during production.

It's like he read the dark Knight returns and only took in the dark tone of the comic and didn't pay attention to Batman as a character at all. I mean he still is Batman in that comic, he still doesn't like killing and the only death attributed to him is the joker and even that's debatable due to how it happened. He even still has a dislike of guns calling them clumsy and only uses them a couple of times when he was desperate (e.g. to set off some c4 or disarm a thug with a hostage, a scene that is semi replicated in BvS terribly with Batman actually killing the thug in a brutal way). He even specifically orders his "sons of Batman" not to use guns during the riots and promises to train them to fight without them. He also isn't overly hateful of any of the bad guys and only does what he does to the mutant leader to make the gang members respect and follow him and prove to himself that he's still able to fight. He clearly has regrets about how he had dealt with the joker in the past but its not in any way implied that he wanted him dead that night, considering what we had seen earlier he would have likely just crippled him had everything went to plan. He even outright saves Harvey Dent's life even though he was trying to kill many people with a bomb.

Yeah, I would never trust someone who only read TDKR. That's elderly cynical Batman at his lowest, that is NOT standard Batman. You can't say you have grasped the character if you're only using one arc of his life. And to make things worse, they then do a complete flip of character by turning Batman into Ironman in JL.

Yeah he couldn't land the proper tone for any of the characters like Marvel does. My friend hates Batman now because he just doesn't like the portrayal of his character. Superman should have been much more optimistic.

That's the issue with film adaptations. Comicbook have become a niche medium, one where now the minority of audience members have that knowledge in mind. In example, nobody knew who the Guardians of the Galaxy were, wrong, comicbook readers did. Dr. Strange is fucking OP, one of the strongest characters ever, and yet people just think he's a guy who has shield thingies and casts spells, and is Sherlock Holmes. While MCU had pretty much been doing really well, especially with the world building and crossovers, the same cannot be said at all for DCEU. The only character that had succeeded thus far is Wonder Woman, and I'm hesitant to say they can replicate it in her sequel.

The film iterations of our beloved heroes are what establish the new status quo for the world. Nobody knows the Black Order with Thanos, so however Infinity War portrays them is what the majority of society will think they should be. My dad hates Batman now because he's too violent, and he dislikes Superman because all he does is save Louis and second time with his adopted mother. Superman in the films is just a symbol and nothing more, he is not even human. That's atrocious inaccurate, as Kal is arguably the most human of them all. And that's coming from a Batman fan boy.

Don't even get me started on my beloved Aquaman and the fish jokes... Just fucking stop it people, it's old and it's not even accurate, yet everyone's first response is that. Why? Because that's how TV and film have influenced people into that being who Aquaman is.

I don't think he's really worked out how to do a proper emotional arc at all. 300 worked because it was intrinsically silly to begin with. But Watchmen was a bit all over the place - he made a broken limb in an alley fight have more impact than the mass slaughter at the end - and it's the same for the DC films. It's just not really made clear what we're supposed to feel at each point. Technically, the words are there, and there is an arc you can figure out if you really pay attention, but that's not how good movies communicate emotion.

I hate to be that guy that compares DC and Marvel but... after watching the Infinity War trailer, I cant believe how much Warner Bros fucked this up. The IW trailer got me more emotional than the entire Justice League film. I cant believe I care more about a talking raccoon and a tree than freaking SUPERMAN or BATMAN.

I still watch and like them, but sometimes the teen drama goes way overboard and I have to scroll away. Literally the reason I wouldnt watch Supergirl unless I had a really good reason and why I'm disliking Arrow's 6 season (though Michael Emerson is ON POINT.)

Here's the thing:When MCU started it didn't have the advantage of their flagship characters being cultural icons or even the rights to their most recognizable ones. Each marvel movie had to flesh out and introduce it's hero to the audience, so we got to know those characters in the span of 10 years, and we patiently waited for the moment they would all finally come together to fight the final villain. It was a very risky process and could have easily backfired.
Now according to this article there was no common goal in WB. It was a disjointed effort to meet deadlines and make fast bucks asap. That's not how you make a lasting investment for a freaking cinematic universe no less.

Spider-Man is the best comparison point to me. I was 100% bought in to the new Spider-Man by the second scene he was in during civil war. That's the difference between good introductions and the shit DC is doing.

Gadot's was actually handled pretty well....but the movie she was introduced in was such a shit show it overshadowed that.

Russos actually did give a reason in an interview. Since Thanos has been gathering the Infinity Stones, the first being the Power Stone, he no longer needs armor which acts as a symbolic gesture of his new power.

Yeah, I dunno if this mentioned before and I missed it, but I just checked the Audience section on RT and almost all the 4star+ ratings are from users that either don't exist or have only ever rated this and other DCEU movies (with 4stars+ as well)

So it seems someone is really trying hard to skewer what the 'audience' thinks of the movie vs the critics. Trying to make it seem way better than it is.

I don't think people would have ever been more excited for the first JL movie than Infinity War. Like if DCEU were good, and you thought of it as a TV show it's like comparing a season finale to a series finale.

It really is insane how Warner Bros managed to torpedo this entire movie universe from the start. Creating a cinematic universe based on the DC comics should have been a license to print. Batman vs Supeman should have made $2 billion on its own.

But they continue to value release dates more than getting the movies right.

I don't put 100% of the blame on Snyder for BVS not being great. It's clear from watching the movie you have different executives pulling him in different directions. The whole thing feels like an informercial for the new universe instead of a good movie on its own.

Studios just keep failing to understand that. Focus on making a good movie first. If people like the movie they'll be willing to comeback again. Same thing with Universal's Dark Universe. They should have been worried about making a good Mummy movie instead of setting up all these new franchises. Iron Man kicked off the MCU because it was a great movie about Iron Man with just a little bit of a tease of a bigger universe in a post credits scene.

Instead Warner Bros got greedy and tried to sidestep all the hard work that Marvel made into building their universe which is why its still going strong after a decade.

Once the feedback on BVS was negative they should have delayed the release date of Justice League. Everyone should have gone back to the drawing board and the excuse that filming was too close to the release of BVS and would look bad wasn't a lame excuse. Things already looked bad and they needed to restore faith in the brand.

Now they've got a Justice League film that will be lucky if it makes half of what the first Avengers film did. Instead of making a show of strength you have a disaster. Ben Affleck is all but confirmed to have quit as Batman. Henry Cavill is already taking about how he has only one movie left as Superman. Nobody wants to see Justice League 2 or another Superman movie.

The only things that worked in Justice League are Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman and Eza Miller as the Flash.

It's going to take years to get the bad taste out of fans mouth. I'd suggest that they reboot the entire thing again but there is no way they are going to get rid of Gadot as she is the only thing that works in these movies.

Warners needs to spend the next few years making sure that these solo movies will be actually good cause that is all they have left at this point.

Iron Man was the first MCU movie. That's where they had to start setting the tone, and tee-ing up all the rest. And they took some fucking risks. Favreau? His one mass market hit before Iron Man was Elf. Downey? Almost uninsurable, coming off a string of bad movies where he wasn't even the lead. Four guys wrote two different scripts which got jammed together.

And they fucking nailed it. Tone, humor, real emotion, fucking plot that made some sense, didn't poison the well for anything that came later.

Then we come to DC. Man of Steel is a fucking grim Superman. Well, there's your tone! Every fucking movie afterward is going to be shot in the dark. Next step? Let's cram three heroes in the movie and have 'em fight each other! Brilliant! Do they come together at the end? Yea! 'Cept for the dead one!

I agree with everything except Downey coming off a string of bad movies. He had a few great performances that started his comeback before Iron Man cemented it. My favorite out of them is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

I liked him in A Scanner Darkly...Still, that's not the sort of person you want to prop up your 150 million dollar tentpole. It was a risk, though admittedly...He fucking was Tony Stark. When they announced who was playing Stark, I just started laughing. He was perfect.

But you know the execs had their buttholes clenched the whole time, worried that he'd have a sudden relapse and they'd be on the hook for it...Apparently Favreau had to fight pretty hard to get them to accept him.

For me, the worst part of Justice League was the soundtrack. The soundtrack seemed very inconsistent with previous movies in the DCEU and the 1989 Batman theme was very out of place with this more realistic and gritty universe. We never heard Superman's theme or Batman's theme, but we heard Wonder Woman's theme though? It seemed so inconsistent and it ruined the one thing that DC movies always did better than the Marvel movies, which was the soundtrack.

Yeah the Soundtrack of Batman v Superman was my favorite part. It got really experimental at points, like when Batman visits his parents grave in a dream. It would be like if Blade Runner 2049 had an orchestral score, just wouldn't be the same movie.

Another knowledgable insider said that at the highest levels of Warner Bros., bonuses are awarded “for making good decisions.” If delaying a film is the right decision, an executive could be rewarded for it.

This is something of an open secret: Warner Bros. are notorious for Executive Meddling. I.e. the Executives have to constantly meddle and fuck with the creative side of the process in an attempt to squeeze every last dime out of potential customers.

If Snyder wanted to do a version of the Dark Knight Returns how did he not realize that that story works because, for decades, everyone thought of Superman as a true blue Boy Scout and this the twist in DKR is jarring? Starting off with dark Superman and killing him isn’t the same thing. Starting off with a sunny Superman in film 1 might have been enough to typecast the character to allow a reversal in BvS.

"The studio had become vocal about wanting “Justice League” to have a light tone, like the one director Joss Whedon had struck for rival Disney’s Marvel Universe blockbuster superhero team-up “The Avengers.” Whedon was enlisted, with Snyder’s blessing, to help add some levity and fun to the script for “Justice League.”"

Honestly, it was the campy-ass trailer that turned me off. The tone of Snyder's DC movies was never a problem for me. I liked it. The plodding, confusing story was the problem. The JL trailer made me cringe. "My man!" ugh